NOTE: This is a reprint of my review from the Middleburg Film Festival. Escobar: Paradise Lost opens June 26th.
No guy likes to meet his girl's parents. Period. Okay, there may be a few exceptions but those guys are probably crazy. We all get that fear in the back of our mind that her father, or older brother, will give us the "if you hurt her" threat/promise to do something awful to us in retaliation. Now imagine that the girl's most dominant male family figure is murderous drug lord Pablo Escobar. How do you think meeting her family would go then? It might go something like it does in Escobar: Paradise Lost, a film about Pablo Escobar that tragically isn't really about Escobar at all even though it really needed to be.
The reason is that the other characters in the film are a total bore, and that includes The Hunger Games star Josh Hutcherson as Nick, a Canadian living the surf life in Colombia. The movie is really about him, and how he gradually enters Escobar's dangerous world simply by falling in love with the man's niece, Maria, played by the lovely Claudia Traisic. Nick is in the country along with his brother (Brady Corbet) and sister-in-law, thinking they've found a little corner of paradise. When Nick meets Maria it's love at first sight, and unfortunately we don't get to really see much of the courtship or much of their relationship at all. Actor-turned-director Andrea Di Stefano seems to be on fast forward getting to an inevitable conflict between Nick and Escobar, so that we never get to see what led up to it. In fact, the story begins by flashing ahead to 1991 on the day Escobar is to turn himself into authorities after a bloody and brutal conflict. He's just asked Nick to do something terrible; hiding Escobar's money in a secluded area then killing anybody who assists him in the task. Can he do it? Will he do it? How the heck does someone like Nick end up in this predicament? Of course it's ridiculous, which may be why Di Stefano doesn't spend too much time on the details.
Jumping back a few years, we're breezed through Nick's meeting with Maria's family, which comes off like a fish-out-of-water comedy with Escobar at its center. We see the vicious kingpin as both a national hero and the family clown; walking around in sweat shorts and Boston Celtics caps, playing in the pool with his kids and basically acting like the most benevolent crime boss ever. Del Toro, who specializes in characters who are slightly out of left field, is masterful in the role because he's not trying to be flashy about it. He's simply captivating and the best reason to see this movie which is pretty average the rest of the way. Hutcherson is solid but Nick has little personality to speak of. He's not a complete dummy (not yet, anyway), and begins to suspect there's more to Escobar's empire than it seems. When he asks Maria how Escobar made his money she innocently replies "Cocaine", before rationalizing why that's perfectly okay.
This would have been a better story if it focused more on Escobar and his tenuous relationship with Nick, an unlikely member of the family if there ever was one. Think of how tense some of the scenes could have gotten as Escobar, who loves Maria dearly, continued to treat Nick with kindness until some later act forces his dark side to emerge. But we don't get that. Instead, Di Stefano has the situation turn on a dime with no explanation at all, simply to get to the final chapter action sequence. Admittedly, Di Stefano does a great job with it, and so does Hutcherson as the simple kid waaaay out of his depth. As he's chased across the countryside by Escobar's goons, Hutcherson is believably terrified, occasionally flashing a look that screams "How did it come to this?!!?" Shot in Panama, the scenery is gorgeous all around, and Di Stefano knows how to stage an effectively gripping set piece. He's got a bright future as a director, and clearly knew to give Del Toro the freedom to embody Escobar in his own way. But it's hard not to think how much better this movie would have been if Escobar was the true focus. Escobar: Paradise Lost isn't the biopic on the drug lord people have been hoping for, but it's a decent enough thriller that will probably be remembered for teasing how amazing a true Escobar film could be with Del Toro.
Rating: 3 out of 5
